Sometimes, the stars will align and the gaming industry will have two or more games that are eerily similar to each other. It happened in 2009 with Sucker Punch’s Infamous and Radical’s Prototype, which was promptly solved with a lingerie fan art competition. Round two came in 2011 with the release of Battlefield 3 from EA and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 by Infinity Ward. Now, that same crossover is set to happen again this winter, though probably not with the lingerie fan art. Jury’s out on that, though.
Last year at Blizzcon, Blizzard unveiled a brand new MOBA-shooter by the name of Overwatch that puts players against each other as a cast of characters who all look like they stepped out of different comic books. Just four months prior to that announcement, Borderlands developer Gearbox revealed their new “hero shooter” Battleborn, wherein players play against each other as a cast of characters who all look like they stepped out of a different set of comic books. Now that Battleborn has had a full reveal this past E3, lots of people have been drawing comparisons between it and Overwatch, since both do look pretty similar. After all, they are both colorful shooters in which you play a cast of characters who would probably be enemies or playable characters in different games (or failing that, a comic book). Both developers are based in the same state; Gearbox has set up shop in Plano, which is only a few hours away from Blizzard’s Austin offices.
But what if their similarities are intentional? What if, in fact, they’re both part of the same series story-wise? Yeah, it sounds crazy, but we’ve got the perfect explanation for this: Overwatch is Battleborn’s prequel. Let’s break this down.
In the initial trailer for Overwatch, we learn the backstory for why everyone’s fighting. In the near future, Earth goes through a global wide “Omnic Crisis,” which basically means the robots rose up and terrorized humanity after their artificial intelligence went all kill crazy. To combat this threat, an international task force by the name of Overwatch was created. They recruited everyone, from simple soldiers decked out in power armor and scientists covered in hazmat suits, to dudes in giant mech armor with hammers and talking gorillas with jetpacks. After the Omnic Crisis, Overwatch stuck around as international peacekeepers until they finally disbanded. As the game itself opens, the remains of Overwatch are basically mercenaries for hire.
The debut CG trailer shows off four characters in action. On the side of “good,” we have Tracer, a British woman with semiautomatic pistols and the ability to teleport across short distances, and Winston, a giant gorilla in power armor that goes into berserker mode if his glasses are smashed. The two enemies they go up against are Reaper, a man covered in all black with a skull mask and a pair of shotguns, and Widowmaker, a woman with an automatic rifle and special goggles. The two groups fight over a gauntlet for someone by the name of Doomfist, but Reaper and Widowmaker flee after a kid caught in the crossfire basically renders it unusable. In the trailer, Reaper unleashes an attack called Death Blossom where darkness surrounds him and he spins around firing his shotguns from all sides. Conveniently enough, there’s also the threat of an approaching darkness in Battleborn.
Battleborn takes place in the distant future where every species has fled to the planet of Solus. Every other planet and star system in the universe is being snuffed out by a darkness known only as the Varelsi. If you need a comparison, think the White Walkers from Game of Thrones, because Gearbox certainly has. The five factions that inhabit Solus– the nature loving Eldrid, power hungry Jennerit Empire, war profiteering Last Light Consortium, Peacekeeper soldiers, and Rogue space pirates– have been fighting over resources for years now, ignoring the approaching threat of the Varelsi and missing the bigger picture to get a bigger stake in the last untainted place in the universe. But the Varelsi are coming in full force, and the different factions unite and send their best fighters, called the “Battleborn,” to repel the invaders before everything is dead by their hand.
The Varelsi are described as “shadowy” and Reaper in Overwatch could be described as the same. Were he powerful enough, could he theoretically create shadow creatures that destroy everything in their path? Could those creatures become more powerful as the years go on, allowing Reaper to grow stronger with each planet and star system that they eradicate? After all, no one in Battleborn knows where the Varelsi came from, and as the years have gone on, the tale of Reaper’s growing power could’ve gotten lost as generations have passed. The E3 trailer shows the Varelsi rushing towards our heroes while their leader Rendain walks calmly behind them, smirking. Reaper’s eyes are red like Rendain’s, and it could easily be explained that it’s Reaper’s real name. After all, read the guy’s bio:
“Some speak of a black-robed terrorist known only as the Reaper. His identity and motives are a mystery. What is known is that where he appears, death follows…Survivors have described a black shadow ghosting unscathed through the most hellish battlefields. The few bodies recovered of those he kills are pale, empty husks drained of life, their cells showing signs of intense degradation. It is possible that he is a byproduct of failed genetic alteration which forces his cells to simultaneously decay and regenerate at a hyper-accelerated rate.”
The remainder of Overwatch’s cast could also end up being the foundation for Battleborn’s different factions. Take, for example, the former’s archer, Hanzo Shimada. Wouldn’t it be possible for his bow skills to be of such renown and fame that they pass over to the Eldrid of Ekkunar, and eventually over to Thorn? After all, it is said that he “perfected his skills as a warrior” and masters eventually do take on apprentices. Zarya of Overwatch is a woman who wants to protect the people she loves, could she possibly end up being the founder of the Peacekeepers that Battleborn’s Oscar Mike and Montana are members of? Might Reinhardt, in his large, rocket-hammer wielding armor be a prototype that led to the creation of Caldarius’s J-HTX Frame Assault Armor? How do we know that the mechanical genius that is Overwatch’s Torbjörn Lindholm isn’t the descendant of Battleborn’s Boldur?!
Of course, it’s possible that it’s just a matter of convenience that Battleborn and Overwatch look so similar. Maybe Battleborn’s samurai character Rath isn’t a futuristic version of the ninja character in Overwatch, and perhaps the latter game’s robotic monk Zenyatta or its Chappie-like Bastion don’t end up being the test AI for which Pharah’s descendants later used to create Marquis and Phoebe of Battleborn’s Last Light Consortium. Battleborn’s 25 characters could not be related to the thus far 14 Blizzard has shown us for Overwatch. Then again, as stated before, Blizzard and Austin are only three hours drive away from each other, so who knows? Maybe someone stole some concept art or emails were sent between designers, and whatever got rejected by one was fair game for the other. Could it be possible that this is just one of those happy accidents, and that both games are incredibly unrelated, so gamers should just enjoy both instead of comparing them?
The answer obviously, is no. Neither studio has had someone say that these two games aren’t similar, so until then, we stand by this and demand a crossover game for the third installment in the Hero Shooter trilogy. Let’s go all out in that one.
Believe our crackpot totally legit theory on Overwatch and Battleborn? Can you come up with something even crazier? Let us know in the comments below!
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